A reader alerts TWS Fact Check to a “news” story that the Supreme Court has banned public schools from teaching about Islam. The post, which has been making the rounds on Facebook for several weeks, claims that Justice Neil Gorsuch issued the deciding opinion in an April 10 ruling to restrict classroom discussion of Islam to its violent, radical wing. Here’s what the story claims:
You will be shocked to learn that this story is fake news. The first tip-off is that the language sounds nothing like Gorsuch. The second is that Justice Gorsuch has an alibi for April 10: It was the day of his swearing in ceremony. And as for the rest of the Supreme Court, there were no decisions handed down between April 3 and April 18.
Slight variations on this post have appeared on a network of click-farming fake news sites since mid-April. They blare headlines like “This Is Why We Need Gorsuch!”—his being the fake deciding vote in an imaginary 5-4 ruling that never took place. These webpages urge readers to share the story on Facebook, where these types of stories tend to get their wings.
Search for the line “It is our duty as Americans first and judges second to safeguard the way our children are indoctrinated”—supposedly from the fake Gorsuch opinion—and the results will give you hundreds websites with names such as the Federalist Tribune, GOP Daily Dose, Washington Feed, and Patriots on the Right. The headlines celebrate a “massive smackdown” to the Muslim community or a devastating blow to Obama’s legacy. Most include some variation on the line: “The Obama administration, after winning this case on appeal in the 17th district court, has no power left.”
The case and the Obama administration’s stake in it are entirely imagined. And so is the 17th District court of appeals. The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has 13 circuit courts: 11 regional ones to decide appeals from the districts within its boundaries, plus the DC Circuit and the Federal Circuit. (That’s not to say there’s no such thing as a 17th district court. Texas has one, but even that state only has 14 courts of appeals.)
The closer you read it, the more the story starts to seem not just suspiciously false but almost comically, intentionally, so. And maybe that was the point. Patient zero for the story news appears to be an April 11 post on the site America’s Last Line of Defense, which peddles—per its own marquee—”Twisted News For Conservative Minds.” They admit that their stories are fake and suggest that the readers they mislead deserve to be duped.
On the site’s “About Us” page, after a phony description of their writers (“educated, God-fearing Christian conservative patriots”) and mission (“to fight for the rights afforded us by the Founding Fathers”), and a picture of a fist painted like an American flag, and a large expanse of white space, there’s a disclaimer:
